


The Boy in the Basement

by Liz2010



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Feral Stiles Stilinski, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Implied Mates, Kidnapping, No Smut, Possibly Unhealthy Relationships, Unhappy Ending, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 10:33:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21098024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liz2010/pseuds/Liz2010
Summary: "Hey Stiles.”They were side by side on the bed, Derek trying to warm the boy up. Stiles looked up from the book he was holding. He didn’t seem to be able to read, but he liked to turn the pages.“I’m glad you’re here.”Derek never quite fit in, with his friends or with his pack. Neither did Stiles, but for very different reasons.  Reasons like, he wasn't supposed to exist.





	The Boy in the Basement

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a bit different than most of my others. My goal was to tell as story with as few of words as possible, a huge difference from my normal style. I was also going for a Halloween type vibe, but it turned out more melancholy than Gothic. But I still like it. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy! As always, I own nothing and all mistakes are mine.

“There’s a human in my basement.”

The words were on the tip of Derek’s tongue as his friends talked around him, ignoring him as they complained about their own petty lives. He didn’t expect any more from them. Derek was a Hale, a trophy, a figure to be seen with, nothing more.

“There’s a human in my basement.”

The words were there as he was yelled at by his teachers for his failures. For not paying attention, for not being as smart as his sister, as well-mannered as his mother. 

“There’s a human in my basement.”

The words were there as he rode home from school on a bus that smelled like feet, sitting alone even though nearly everyone else was pressed three to a seat, watching the trees go by and wishing he was anywhere but here. 

The words never came out. They shriveled and died on his tongue, bitter as blood and just as sickening. 

Because there was, in fact, a human in his basement. Not that big of a deal, really. It was a nice basement, with a bed and toilet, a sink with hot water, even a cooler for drinks. It was set up for young werewolves to stay for long periods at a time while they learned control. Derek had spent more time down there than any of his sibling, and had left a few books and games hidden under the mattress. 

But the human, a human, should never have been town there. 

Because humans didn’t exist. Not anymore.

\-------  
Derek was an unhappy pup, everyone knew it. He was always too slow, too weak, too stupid, a lone boy floating in a sea of sisters. 

So, he wondered the woods alone, more often than not, if only to get away from the worried looks of his mother, the whispers that if he didn’t shape up soon, he would end up an omega. 

That was where he saw the boy. 

It was by the creek, drinking on all fours with his head in the water, dirty and mostly naked, looking more like an animal than any werewolf ever did. 

“Hey.” Derek yelled out, thinking for a moment that it was one of the omegas from town that had wandered onto the Hale property. “You can’t be here.”

The boy looked up, but his eyes didn’t flash. He let out a whine, but it’s wasn’t a wolf’s. 

Then, before Derek could understand what it was he was looking at, the thing turned and ran, stumbling over limbs and sliding in leaves. 

It wasn’t until later that night, laying in bed, that Derek finally realized that it wasn’t an omega at all. 

It was a human. 

\------  
Humans weren’t real, not anymore. They had been killed off a hundred years ago, when the wolves rose up to rule. The wolfs tore down the cites and planted trees, separating the country not into states, but pack territories. 

All humans were now was a ghost story in the night, told to frighten young pups, to keep them from straying alone in the woods. 

Because humans had once been dangerous. They were weak and slow, but they created weapons, guns and knives that ripped the hides of even alphas. They grew plants that burned the lungs from the inside out just from being near. They had ash that could trap even the fiercest warrior. 

They were hunters. 

But they were gone now, a seldom told story. 

So, perhaps Derek could be forgiven for being so slow in his understanding. 

\-------  
The human was stupid, or maybe just desperate, because the next week, Derek saw him at the creek again. 

This time he didn’t cry out, he didn’t yell. 

He let the boy, and it was certainly a boy, drink from the water then disappear into the woods. 

He wondered how proud his mother would be when he brought the human to her. Maybe he could win her love, earn his place it the pack. 

He could prove himself a wolf. 

\------  
The boy was young, though Derek didn’t know how to measure human ages. If he had been a wolf, Derek would have guessed 10, maybe 11, but as it was, the human could be 8 or 16. He didn’t know. 

The boy had golden eyes that shown in the sun. He was slender, built nothing like the wolves, each rib visible, hair matted, hands and feet scarred. He was timid. Every little noise sent him running into the woods, heart beating so much faster than a wolf’s ever would. 

He always ran from Derek. Always. 

Derek began to bring gifts, setting them down then sitting in the clearing, waiting on the boy to appear. Food at first, then blankets, and finally as shirt, as the seasons were changing, and even Derek could feel the chill in the air. 

The boy didn’t take the food at first. Just sniffed it once, then left it to rot. 

But slowly, day after day, week after week, the human wore down. He ate, hesitantly at first, then ravenously. 

The blankets disappeared and the shirt was proudly worn. 

Finally, finally, the human didn’t run when Derek creeped close. He let the wolf near, making happy chirping noises, his scent content. 

Derek smiled at his victory in winning the humans trust and bide his time. 

\-----  
The human was wild, more feral than any wolf Derek had ever met. He didn’t wash, he tore into food with his hands like a dog. He pissed where he pleased, and curled up in a small den when he was done. 

Derek waited ever so patently. He waited until the boy didn't flinch when Derek came close, until he felt safe enough to sit and eat the food Derek brought, even offering bits to Derek. He didn’t talk but he chirped when he was happy, and whined when he was upset, howled when Derek turned to leave. 

Derek waited until the boy was finally relaxed around him. It was then that Derek made his move. 

So, fast the human didn’t have time to even turn to run, Derek had his hands around him, easily picking him up and walking calmly with the shrieking and squirming kid in his arms. 

This would show them. His mother would be so proud of him for bringing her a human child, something no one thought was possible. Their pack would be praised across the land. The kids at school wouldn’t talk over him, they would talk to him. His teachers would smile at him, his sisters would stop their teasing. 

The human screamed so loud it hurt Derek’s ears, then threw his head back, crushing Derek’s nose in a moment of blinding pain. 

Without thinking, he dropped the boy to grab at his face, effectively blind from pain and sense of smell deadened by the blood. 

The boy, the clever thing, started running. 

Derek snarled then took off after him, nose healing as he ran, rage coloring the world shades of red. 

The human only made it a few yards before Derek had him pinned, eyes glowing and fangs inches from the human’s throat. 

He could rip it out, let the bright blood paint them both. A dead human would still be a prize. 

The boy was squirming, gasping, eyes wide with fear and reeking of sweat and piss. 

Derek lowered his head, already tasting the bitter sweetness of blood, the thick beating of the human's heart filling his ears. 

“Please.”

It was slurred and strangled, but Derek still understood. He lifted his head, his rage clearing as surprise replaced it. The human could talk. 

“Please.” The human repeated, more clearly this time. 

“You can talk.” Derek said, still in shock. “You can talk.”

He lifted himself up enough that the boy pulled himself free, running off into the woods. 

He could have run after him, he could have hunted the boy down. But it felt wrong, now that he knew the boy could speak. He wasn’t just an animal now and somehow that changed everything. 

\-------  
Derek went to the library and checked out books on humans. He wanted to learn everything that the stories left out. 

Humans were smart, clever. They made choices based on things like trust and love, not blind loyalty and instinct. 

They used to be in packs. 

\-----  
The boy wasn’t at the creek anymore. Derek looked everywhere, under ever tree and in every ditch. He couldn’t catch the scent of him, the sweet smell that was somehow so different than from the musk of a wolf. 

Derek looked at the falling leaves and wondered how the boy would survive the winter.

\--------  
Derek got back to his life, back to being invisible and miserable. His mother’s eyes skipped over him at dinners, he was ignored at school.

His dreams were filled with a boy with bright eyes, saying please, over and over. He woke with an aching heart and a bitter taste on his tongue. 

\------  
“You’re acting funny.” Laura, his oldest sister, said making a face at him as they sat in the living room working on homework. “You smell sad.”

\-----  
Derek didn’t find the human again until the day after the first snow. As was their tradition, the pack had gone out to frolic in the snow, to enjoy the crisp clean smell. 

By instinct, Derek ended up by the creek, alone, naturally. He wandered in the water, the current keeping it from freezing yet.

He almost missed the sound of a hummingbird heart over the sound of the water. It was only because he paused to look up at the setting sun and admire the colors it painted the sky, that he caught it. 

He followed the boy’s heart to find the human curled up in the blanket Derek had once brought him beside the creek, lips blue and skin as pale as the snow he was laying in. 

“Human. Boy.” Derek said, not knowing what else to call him. “Boy, are you alright?”

The boy didn’t move and each breathe grated in his chest. He smelled wrong, rotten. Derek didn’t know much about humans, but he knew that this was bad. 

He scooped up the boy and ran to the house.

\------  
Derek made it back to the house before the rest of the pack. He went straight to the basement, the one place no one would look. 

He put the boy in the bed, pulling blanket after blanket onto the still form. He pet the human’s head comforting, like his mother did when he was younger. 

The boy shivered and shook, his breaths a wheeze in the dark. 

He whispered for the boy to open his eyes, to wake up. He needed him to live, his wolf howled for it. He needed him in a way Derek couldn't explain.

He needed to make up for his mistake of trying to capture him, for treating the human like an animal, instead of pack. He promised the human that he would be safe, that everything would be okay, if he would just open his eyes. 

He heard that pack come home, but no one looked for him. He didn’t expect them too.

\------  
By the time Derek left the basement the next morning, the boy’s lips were red again, plump and lovely and his scent full of life instead of rot. On a whim, he pressed his lips to the boy’s forehead, scenting him in the best way he could think to, praying that no one would go downstairs. 

He wanted to boy to himself. 

He wanted to make him pack. He wanted to keep him safe, happy, forever and ever. 

All he had to do was hide the human. Forever. 

\--------  
“There’s a human in my basement.”

\------  
“My name’s Derek.” 

It was dark in the basement. Derek didn’t dare to turn on the overhead light, so they ate the soup he had snuck down by candlelight. 

The silence hurt, like a rope pulled too tight until it snapped. 

“I know you can understand me. I know you can talk.”

The human shrugged in response, his feral eyes flickering between Derek and the door. 

“You’re safe down here. I’ll take care of you. But there are wolves upstairs. They'll kill you.”

The human shrugged again, but shifted closer to Derek. Derek grinned in the dark. 

\------  
“Where’s your family?” Derek asked, over and over. “Where is your pack?”

There was never an answer. 

\------  
“Stiles.”

“What the hell is a Stiles?” Derek asked, smiling despite his harsh tone. The human had spoken again. 

The boy pointed to himself, the thin limb shaking even as he curled tighter in his blankets. 

“Nice to meet you Stiles.”

The boy’s, Stiles’, smile was blinding in the dark.

\------  


His Uncle Peter took him aside quietly.

“You’ve been spending a lot of time downstairs. Are you having trouble with the shift again?”

There wasn’t kindness in his eyes, or even concern. Only judgment.

“No.”

\------  


“We have to be more careful.”

Stiles nodded.

“I can’t come down as much.”

The boy whined, non-verbal again, but didn’t argue.

\-----  


“There’s a human in my basement.”

\-----  
“Hey Stiles.”

They were side by side on the bed, Derek trying to warm the boy up. He was always too cold and Derek knew leaving him in the basement wasn't helping matters. Stiles looked up from the book he was holding. He didn’t seem to be able to read, but he liked to turn the pages.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

Stiles didn’t smile, but instead pressed his lips quickly against Derek’s.

Derek blinked and Stiles was back to looking at his book.

Derek was taking that as a “Me too”.

\-------  


In the end, they made it three weeks. Three weeks of snuggles and soup in the dark. Three weeks of Derek trying to show Stiles how sorry he was, and Stiles accepting it.

Three weeks of kisses, of quiet promises of being together forever.

\-----  


“Please!”

Derek jumped up from the kitchen table where he had been working on his homework. Peter was dragging a terrified and screaming Stiles into the living room by his hair. Derek ran after them, not even noticing that is sisters all were following too.

“Talia!” Peter bellowed, letting go of Stiles hair, and kicking him to his belly.

“Don’t hurt him.” Derek shouted, running to Stiles side and pulling him to his chest protectively.

Talia came out of the study, eyes flashing red as she took in the scene.

“What’s going on?”

“Ask your son. Ask him what he has been keeping a secret in the basement.”

“Is that a human?”

“Fuck if I know.”

The adults talked over the two of them huddle on the floor.

“Please.” Stiles whispered. “Please.”

\-----  


“Where did you find him?” His mother asked. Derek could feel the disappointment in her gaze and it hurt. Somehow, even after hiding Stiles, he had hoped she would be proud of him, proud of how Derek was going to grow the pack.

“In the woods.”

“He’s a human. And you brought him into our house! He could have killed us all.”

Derek could hear his sisters murmuring but ignored them.

“He’s never hurt anyone! He was sick, he needed me.”

Peter scoffed. Talia’s face was blank.

“He could be pack. I’ve read about it. Humans used to be pack.” Derek was begging now.

“Humans have to die. Those are the laws.” Talia’s tone was final, the judgement of the alpha.

“Please.” Stiles whispered, too how for anyone’s ears but Derek’s.

“Bite him then.” Derek said desperately. “No one has to know he used to be human.”

“You don’t know that.” Peter snarled. “Talia, do you now what this would do to the pack’s reputation if it got out we had a human and didn’t kill it.”

“No one would know.” Aunt Alyvia, Peter’s wife, spoke up from the huddle of the other she-wolves. “Once they turn, no one can tell.”

“Mom. I love him. Mom, please.”

\------  


Talia’s teeth lengthen and they sunk into Stiles arm.

The human screamed, burying his face in Derek’s chest with a sob.

\------  


“Please.”

\-------  
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

\---------  
“There was a human in my basement.”

\-------  


Minutes later, Stiles arm wrapped in a towel, sitting on Derek’s lap on the living room floor, Stiles coughed.

Derek didn’t panic, not at first. The boy coughed a lot, especially in the cold of the basement. No until he saw the ink black blood on Stiles lips.

“No.” Derek said, in denial. He had read about bite rejection. It was rare, but it happened in human, sometimes. It was bloody and painful. It was unthinkable.

It couldn’t be happening to Stiles. It couldn’t.

\------  


It took hours for Stiles to die.

Most of pack wandered off, too busy or too bored to wait and watch. Only his mother and Peter stayed, watching silently.

Stiles cried as he choked on the tar thick blood as it coated his throat. It rolled out his ears, matting his hair. He gasped for air, back arched in pain.

Derek took all the pain he could, but it boiled up and over. No matter how much he took, there as always more.

He died so slow.

\-------  
“I’m so sorry. Please don’t die. Please Stiles. Don’t die.”

\------  


“I. I miss my father.” Stiles gasped, spitting out black with every word.

\-------  


Stiles heart stopped before the sun set.

“Pity.” Peter said, nudging the body with his shoe. “He would have been interesting.”

Derek snarled at him through his tears, rocking the body back and forth, unwilling to put Stiles down.

“Derek.” Talia’s voice was harsh in the silence left behind after the hummingbird heart stopped. “Clean up your mess.”

\------  


Derek buried Stiles in the frozen ground under a tree by the creek. Aunt Alyvia helped him cut through the earth, but Derek placed him in the grave alone.

She put a hand on his shoulder.

“My mother was born human, to two wolves, just after the wolves rose up. Both she and her sister had to be bit and turned. My mother made it. Her sister didn’t.

Derek turned from the grave and walked into the darkness.

\------  


Stiles.

Derek carved it into the tree, wishing he could say more.

The last human.

He added, the only epitaph he could give.

\-------  


“I miss the human in my basement.”

Derek’s life didn’t get any worse. It didn’t get any better either. He was still ignored, skipped over, even openly mocked.

He didn’t care. Stiles was gone. His human was gone.

And life didn’t seem to matter so much anymore.

\------  


“I knew it.” Derek said to himself, as he woke up with the smell of smoke in his nose and the heat of fire on his skin as it blistered and burned. “I knew he wasn’t alone.”

A human that age, a child really, could never had survived long on his own. There had to have been others.

Derek should have tried to find them.

It was summer again. Life had drug on, and taken Derek with it. And, despite Derek efforts, no one ever brought up the human that had once been in the basement. Maybe they should have.

Maybe then they wouldn’t all have to die.

Derek could hear the pack crying that they couldn’t get out. A pack bond, Derek couldn’t tell whose, snapped, ripping his heart open.

Ash. A certain type of wood ash. He remembered. Humans could trap wolves with it.

The fire burned hot as his pack screamed.

Derek stayed upstairs in his room, letting the smoke choke him rather than run downstairs and watch his family die, one after another. Feeling it would be bad enough.

He was ready to go. He would search the afterlife for Stiles, loyal until the very end, just like a wolf should be.

He looked out the window, and saw a group huddled on the hill, watching the house burn. He didn’t see eyes flashing, or fur on their faces.

Humans.

They were clever, to have figured out who killed Stiles, considering that no one outside the pack even know the boy had existed.

He hoped Stiles’ father was with the other humans. He hoped they had found his grave, had mourned him.

“Please.” He whispered, as his lungs gave up, praying that the moon would lead him back to Stiles.


End file.
